1. Field
An air handler and a method for assembling an air handler are disclosed herein.
2. Background
Generally, an air conditioner is a system that cools, heats, or ventilates an air conditioning object space, such as a room or space, by repeating a series of processes including suctioning in of indoor air from the room or space, providing heat exchange between the suctioned in indoor air and a low-temperature or high-temperature refrigerant, and discharging the heat-exchanged air into the room or space. The air conditioner employs a refrigerant cycle comprised of a compressor, an expander, a first heat exchanger, that is, a condenser or evaporator, and a second heat exchanger, that is, an evaporator or condenser.
Such an air conditioner may be divided into an outdoor unit or device, which is mainly installed outside (also referred to as “outdoor side” or “heat radiation side”) and an indoor unit or device, which is mainly installed inside a building (also referred to as “indoor side” or “heat absorption side”). Usually, a condenser, that is, an outdoor heat exchanger, and a compressor are installed in the outdoor unit, and an evaporator, that is, an indoor heat exchanger, is installed in the indoor unit.
As is known in the art, air conditioners may be broadly classified into a discrete type air conditioner, in which an outdoor unit and an indoor unit are separately installed, and an integral type air conditioner, in which an outdoor unit and an indoor unit are integrated. Additionally, air conditioners may be classified, based on a magnitude of capacity, into a small capacity air conditioner and a large capacity air conditioner.
In particular, a large capacity air conditioner may include an indoor unit and an outdoor unit integrated with each other, and may be configured to supply conditioned air into a plurality of object spaces requiring air conditioning through ducts, for example. An “air handling unit” or “air handler” is one type of large capacity air conditioner, which mixes outdoor air (outside air) and indoor air at an appropriate ratio to suit a target load depending on temperature, humidity, and cleanliness conditions of an object space, thereby providing a user with optimal air conditioning.
The above-described air handling unit may consist of modules having differentiated functions to ensure efficient driving of a system based on a target load of an object space.
As representative examples, air handling units are described in Korean Registered Patent No. 10-1294097 and Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2011-0056109. In these related art air handling units, an external appearance of the air handling unit is defined by a plurality of frames forming an overall framework of the air handling unit, and a plurality of panels coupled to the plurality of frames. The plurality of frames and the plurality of panels define flow passages for the flow of conditioned air.
However, the related art air handling units suffer from an excessive number of assembly operations, because the plurality of panels must be coupled to the frames using a lot of screws to achieve a high coupling strength required to prevent leakage of conditioned air. Further, in the related art air handling units, to prevent conditioned air from leaking through gaps between the frames and the panels, it is necessary to primarily wrap electrical insulating tape around outer rim portions of the respective panels. Then, after coupling the plurality of panels to the plurality of frames via the above-described complicated process, it is necessary to secondarily apply a sealant, such as silicon, to regions where air leakage may occur based on a coupling strength between the plurality of frames and the plurality of panels.
In addition, the related art air handling units have difficulty in management and transportation of component elements because all of the component elements of the unit must be transported to an installation site and completely assembled on site, and this consequently causes increased logistics and transportation costs. The complicated installation process and transportation as described above problematically result in a delay of installation time and increased installation costs.